t, with this partial exception, no competent writer has
hitherto endeavoured once for all to settle the long-standing question as
to the rational probability of Theism, I cannot but feel that any attempt,
however imperfect, to do this, will be welcome to thinkers of every
school--the more so in view of the fact that the prodigious rapidity which
of late years has marked the advance both of physical and of speculative
science, has afforded highly valuable data for assisting us towards a
reasonable and, I think, a final decision as to the strictly logical
standing of this important matter. However, be my attempt welcome or no, I
feel that it is my obvious duty to publish the results which have been
yielded by an honest and careful analysis.

Sec. 2. I may most fitly begin this analysis by briefly disposing of such
arguments in favour of Theism as are manifestly erroneous. And I do this
the more willingly because, as these arguments are at the present time most
in vogue, an exposure of their fallacies may perhaps deter our popular
apologists of the future from drawing upon themselves the silent contempt
of every reader whose intellect is not either prejudiced or imbecile.

Sec. 3. A favourite piece of apologetic juggling is that of first demolishing
Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, &c., by successively calling upon them to
explain the mystery of self-existence, and then tacitly assuming that the
need of such an explanation is absent in the case of Theism--as though the
attribute in question were more conceivable when posited in a Deity than
when posited elsewhere.

It is, I hope, unnecessary to observe that, so far as the ultimate mystery
of existence is concerned, any and every theory of things is equally
entitled to the inexplicable fact that something is; and that any endeavour
on the part of the votaries of one theory to shift from themselves to the
votaries of another theory the _onus_ of explaining the necessarily
inexplicable, is an instance of irrationality which borders on the
ludicrous.

Sec. 4. Another argument, or semblance of an argument, is the very prevalent
one, "Our heart requires a God; therefore it is probable that there is a
God:" as though such a subjective necessity, even if made out, could ever
prove an objective existence.[1]

Sec. 5. If it is said that the theistic aspirations of the human heart, by the
mere fact of their presence, point to the existence of a God as to their
explanatory cause,